This blog shares the research experiences and findings conducted at University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW faculty and students) in conjunction with Plastic Ocean Project. Earlier posts share open-ocean sampling and adventures in the North and South Atlantic, the South Pacific and the North Pacific Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Outreach and education is the primary purposes to bring global awareness to an issue that has reached a crisis level in the marine environment.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
As I Witnessed in the North Pacific 3,460 Nautical Miles
In 1958, Don MacFarland and a group of friends made a raft and sailed from California to Hawaii. In 2008, Marcus Eriksen and Joel Pascal did the same. This video describes the drastic difference in their experiences. In the end, we are removing the fish by over fishing and replacing them with plastic. Not to mention, plastics put an added strain on the marine life populations due to entanglement and ingestion of plastics that often lead to slow painful deaths.
One of the most surprising things to me while we were out at sea for a month was the lack of marine life. I didn't see ANY sea turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks or schools of fish. The only time I saw fish was when there was a large plastic item in the ocean like ghostnets or barrels. Think about that, a month at sea and I didn't see hardly any fish and not one marine mammal. Watching this video made me realize what I experienced may be a sign of a sea change.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That is both startling and saddening
ReplyDelete